[Footnote 3:  [Sin and Death]]

[Footnote 4:  In the fourteenth Book, where Here visits the home of Sleep, the brother of Death, and offers him the bribe of a gold chain if he will shut the eyes of Zeus, Sleep does not think it can be done.  Here then doubles her bribe, and offers Sleep a wife, the youngest of the Graces.  Sleep makes her swear by Styx that she will hold to her word, and when she has done so flies off in her company, sits in the shape of a night-hawk in a pine tree upon the peak of Ida, whence when Zeus was subdued by love and sleep, Sleep went down to the ships to tell Poseidon that now was his time to help the Greeks.]

[Footnote 5:  In the Prometheus Bound of AEschylus, the binding of Prometheus by pitiless Strength, who mocks at compassion in the god Hephaistos, charged to serve him in this office, opens the sublimest of the ancient dramas.  Addison is wrong in saying that there is a personification here of Strength and Necessity; Hephaistos does indeed say that he obeys Necessity, but his personified companions are Strength and Force, and of these Force appears only as the dumb attendant of Strength.  Addisons greatest critics had something to learn when they were blind to the significance of the contrast between Visible Strength at the opening of this poem, and the close with sublime prophecy of an unseen Power of the Future that disturbs Zeus on his throne, and gathers his thunders about the undaunted Prometheus.

  Now let the shrivelling flame at me be driven,
  Let him, with flaky snowstorms and the crash
  Of subterraneous thunders, into ruins
  And wild confusion hurl and mingle all: 
  For nought of these will bend me that I speak
  Who is foredoomed to cast him from his throne.

  (Mrs. Websters translation.)]

[Footnote 6:  Habakkuk iii. 5.]

* * * * *

No. 358.  Monday, April 21, 1702.  Steele.

  Desipere in loco.

  Hor.

Charles Lillie attended me the other day, and made me a Present of a large Sheet of Paper, on which is delineated a Pavement of Mosaick Work, lately discovered at Stunsfield near Woodstock. [1] A Person who has so much the Gift of Speech as Mr. Lillie, and can carry on a Discourse without Reply, had great Opportunity on that Occasion to expatiate upon so fine a Piece of Antiquity.  Among other things, I remember, he gave me his Opinion, which he drew from the Ornaments of the Work, That this was the Floor of a Room dedicated to Mirth and Concord.  Viewing this Work, made my Fancy run over the many gay Expressions I had read in ancient Authors, which contained Invitations to lay aside Care and Anxiety, and give a Loose to that pleasing Forgetfulness wherein Men put off their Characters of Business, and enjoy their very Selves.  These Hours were usually passed in Rooms adorned for that purpose, and set out in such a manner, as the Objects